by Patrick H. Moore
The beach at Venice, California seems more reminiscent of the 1960s than the modern world. It’s a cool and generally mellow scene that attracts tens of thousands of SoCal residents on any given weekend afternoon. Here you can you find groups of up to 50 people clustered around bonfires jamming on bongos while the acrid smell of marijuana wafts through the air. The diverse crowd includes frisbee players, grizzled folk-rock musicians, young hip-hop musicians, whites, blacks, the young, the elderly, pretty much everyone you can think of with the exception of the rich and the super-rich. The French Riviera it is not; rather, it is a funky comfortable place where pretty much everyone is welcome.
The all-enveloping calm of the beach and Boardwalk area was rudely interrupted by a single driver in a black car on Saturday evening just after six o’clock. CBSLA.com has the story:
Witnesses said a driver purposely and methodically plowed into crowds of people on the Venice Boardwalk Saturday.
The incident, which occurred near 1 Dudley Avenue, according to LA Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey, left one person dead, two people seriously hurt, and two more critically injured. At least eight other people sustained minor injuries.
Witnesses told police the driver seemed to be in control of the vehicle. Louisa Hodge, reporting for KCAL9, said witnesses told her the driver seemed to be deliberately trying to hit people. She reported seeing many “people being brought out on stretchers. I saw people with blood all over their legs.”
Hodge quoted one witness as saying “The driver was out for blood.” She quoted other witnesses who said the driver was going 60 mph and that others told her the man was driving “with intent.”
According to unconfirmed reports from the scene, one of the critically injured is believed to be a 4-year-old child.
“It was a solo vehicle versus multiple pedestrians on the Venice Boardwalk,” Humphrey said. He added that one man was in “grave condition, a man is fighting for his life.” It is believed that the man with grave injuries was the person who died.
Police later confirmed the driver fled the vehicle and was wanted for felony hit-and-run.
At 10 p.m., four hours after the vehicular assault, KCAL9′s Rachel Kim was informed by police that a suspect was in custody and being questioned. In an abundance of caution, LAPD’s Counter-Terrorism Unit also responded to the scene.
Kim spoke to several witnesses:
“This guy had an intent to create mayhem and massacre a lot of people,” said Dave Blackburn.
“It was horrific. People flying everywhere. It looked like something out of a movie,” said Elizabeth Adams.
Meanwhile, a British gentleman, Aaron Mason, who is visiting LA from England, told KCAL9′s Brittney Hopper that he’d been hit by the vehicle causing an injury to his leg. He told Hopper that he refused medical treatment on the scene because there were “so many people” with injuries a lot more severe than his.
Update:
Police have arrested a suspect who has been identified as 38-year-old Nathan Louis Campbell. He is being held on $1 million bail. His motive remains unknown